Pimachiowin Aki and Atikaki Provincial Park

UNESCO World Heritage Site Inscribed 2018, About 29,040 Square Kilometres Across Manitoba And Ontario; The Largest Protected Area Of North American Boreal Shield Forest, Nominated By Four Anishinaabe First Nations · Bloodvein, Manitoba

Pimachiowin Aki means the land that gives life, and it is the only UNESCO World Heritage Site in the world inscribed for BOTH its natural values and an Indigenous cultural landscape of this kind - nominated not by governments but by FOUR ANISHINAABE FIRST NATIONS, Bloodvein River, Little Grand Rapids, Pauingassi and Poplar River, who worked at it for over a decade before inscription in 2018. It covers about twenty-nine thousand square kilometres across the Manitoba-Ontario border, THE LARGEST PROTECTED AREA OF NORTH AMERICAN BOREAL SHIELD FOREST, and on the Manitoba side much of it is ATIKAKI PROVINCIAL WILDERNESS PARK. What is protected is not wilderness in the empty sense: it is a lived-in landscape of trapline territories, harvesting grounds, ancient pictograph sites and waterways used continuously for thousands of years. The BLOODVEIN RIVER, a Canadian Heritage River, runs through it and is one of the great Shield canoe trips.

Atikaki Provincial Wilderness Park, Bloodvein River, eastern Manitoba, Bloodvein, Manitoba, Canada

THERE IS NO GATE, NO VISITOR CENTRE AND ALMOST NO INFRASTRUCTURE. The season is ROUGHLY JUNE TO EARLY SEPTEMBER for paddling, bounded by ice-out and freeze-up. ACCESS IS BY FLOAT PLANE FROM BISSETT OR WINNIPEG, or by a long paddle in - THERE ARE NO ROADS into the wilderness park. MANITOBA PARKS REQUIRES A BACKCOUNTRY PERMIT for Atikaki and a park vehicle permit where roads reach the edges. THE BLOODVEIN RIVER TRIP IS A FULL EXPEDITION, typically ten days to three weeks with a float plane drop and a pickup arranged in advance. THIS IS A LIVED-IN ANISHINAABE LANDSCAPE - traplines, cabins and harvesting areas are in active use and are not abandoned curiosities. Contact the Pimachiowin Aki Corporation and the relevant First Nation before planning travel through their territory.

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